by Bill Kitson
Had the market trader been braver and looked sooner, he would have seen the man walking swiftly, removing his balaclava, and stuffing it along with the apron inside his jacket, before turning the corner and heading back towards the Market Place.
As the thief walked he reflected on what had occurred, all but oblivious to his surroundings. Had he been less preoccupied, he might have noticed a teenager walking away from near to where he’d robbed the pet food supplier, but even had he done so, he wouldn’t have placed any significance on it.
It had been a good day so far. Seeing the look on the farmer’s face, and relieving him of the fifteen hundred pounds in his wallet as the old man was relieving himself had been very satisfying. Then the market trader had donated generously; around another five hundred pounds there. He should have been content, but then again, when you’re luck’s in, there’s no point in stopping. Especially as he had another easy target in sight, and he reckoned the cafe qualified as an easy target.
The Market Cafe catered for a different clientele to the more genteel Helm Tea Rooms. There, customers could expect waitresses dressed in black with neatly starched white aprons. They could expect dainty pastries and slices of delicious cakes to complement the tea served in delicate china crockery.
In the Market Cafe, they got more basic food — at a far more basic price. The cafe opened at 7 a.m. every morning, except on market days when it was open an hour earlier. Almost as soon as the sign on the door was switched round, the kitchen became redolent with the appetizing aroma of bacon and sausages on the griddle, the scent of which was carried outside by the extractor fans. The smell attracted market traders, who paused in their task of setting their stalls out to grab a quick bacon and egg or sausage sandwich. They were joined by shopkeepers about to open up, workers on their way to offices and factories on the industrial estate, and early shoppers.
Nor was the breakfast trade the only busy part of their day. While Helm Tea Rooms tended to the more sophisticated needs of visitors, the Market Cafe continued to serve a steady stream of customers throughout the morning, before their legendary meat and two veg lunches for £5 caused another queue to spill out onto the pavement outside. Once that rush died down, it was easier going for the owner, who doubled as the chef, and her two assistants, one who combined duties as till operator and table clearer, while the other concentrated on delivering food to the hungry diners as fast as she could.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, following the practice that had been established since the day the cafe first opened, the door was locked. The chef took off her apron and retired outside to the small courtyard with a mug of coffee and a packet of cigarettes. This routine never varied, come rain or shine, even on the coldest days of winter. To help her unwind, she had purchased a small picnic table and umbrella to ward off the worst of the weather.
The courtyard was actually the end of a small cul-de-sac of mews cottages which ran either side of the short cobbled back street. It was a tiny haven of charm that had changed little over the two centuries since it was built. There was little evidence of the intrusion of modern life, save some double-glazed windows, a couple of satellite dishes and the large wheelie bin that coped with the cafe’s waste.
At approximately 3.50 p.m. a pedestrian walked swiftly down the mews and took up position behind the wheelie bin. Having made a slight adjustment to his clothing, he waited. Before long, the chef emerged from the back door from the kitchen, set down her coffee on the table, returned to close the door and then sat down and took out her cigarettes and lighter from her pocket.
As she crouched slightly to shield the flame of her lighter from the breeze, she noticed a blur of movement in her peripheral vision. At first, she thought it was one of the neighbours’ marauding cats that were always on the hunt for food scraps. Before she had chance to turn and investigate, something bright glinted in front of her eyes and she felt a cold, sharp sensation at her throat.
‘Stand up.’ A voice growled in her ear.
Terrified, the cafe owner obeyed, the lighted cigarette still clutched in her hand.
‘Drop the fag and go to the door. Slowly!’
Again she did as she was ordered, her stomach churning with fear.
‘Open it and call your friend.’
She did so, shouting for her deputy as instructed.
The woman emerged and stopped suddenly, staring at her employer and the knife held close to her throat. If that wasn’t frightening enough, the glittering menace of the attacker’s eyes seen through the slits of his balaclava was terrifying.
‘All the notes from the till. Now! Do it — or I slit her throat,’ he growled.
The instruction was clear enough, but the woman remained rooted to the spot.
‘Do as he says, Carol,’ the cafe owner told her.
‘Yes, Carol. Do it! And be quick.’ The assailant moved the knife slightly, drawing a trickle of blood to emphasize his point. ‘Oops, careless,’ he remarked. The threat was effective.
Within a minute, Carol returned with a sizeable wad of notes, which the attacker snatched from her. In almost the same movement, he thrust the cafe owner violently through the open doorway, where she cannoned into her assistant. As the two women sprawled on the kitchen floor in a tangle of arms and legs, the thief slammed the door. Carol, the first to recover, staggered to her feet. As she did so, she heard a rumbling sound from outside. She flung the door open to give chase; an act that she later realized would have been extremely foolhardy. It was thwarted, however, because her progress was blocked by the wheelie bin rolled in front of the exit. Helpless, she stared down the courtyard in time to see the man disappearing round the corner, removing his balaclava as he went.
* * *
The first call came in at around 2 p.m. Nash took it, listened to what Jack Binns said and then put the phone down. ‘Come along, Clara, we’re going on a pub crawl.’
‘What?’
‘Well, one pub to be exact. Somebody mugged a farmer as he was taking a leak in the toilets. Apparently, they’ve got fifteen hundred pounds from him.’
‘Blimey, that’s a lot of cash to be carrying around. Where did he get that sort of money from?’
‘That’s what we’ll have to find out. If I’d to guess I’d say he might have been paid in cash for some beasts he sold at mart. Either that or he had a big win at the bookies. Would you hold the fort, please, Lisa?’
It took the detectives no more than a couple of minutes to walk across the market square to the Cobblers Arms, where they found the blustering farmer having a plaster attached to his neck by the barmaid. His collar was spotted with blood, but he assured the detectives he was otherwise uninjured.
They listened to the aggrieved man telling his story, with frequent ribald interruptions from his cronies. After the third of these, Nash turned and told the onlookers, ‘Can we just listen to what happened without you lot taking the . . . Mickey,’ he changed the ending rapidly, but not before his audience noticed. He waited for their laughter to die down and then nodded to the victim, who resumed his narrative.
‘Did you notice anyone suspicious in the bar before it happened?’ Nash asked when he’d finished.
‘Nobody at all,’ the farmer replied.
‘That’s not surprising,’ one of the other men interrupted, ‘you were too busy ogling that young lass sitting at the bar. Undressing her with your eyes, you were, not that it would take much doing, seeing she was only half dressed.’
Nash blinked. ‘Tell me more.’
‘She came in a bit after we did and perched on that stool at the end of the bar. She had a right short skirt on. Little more than a belt, it were. I reckon if she’d sat facing us, we’d have got visions of the Promised Land. Nice legs, too,’ he added as an afterthought.
‘Anything else you noticed about her?’
‘She’d bright red hair. Long red hair. Not natural. It were bright scarlet. Oh, and she spoke funny.’
‘Funny, what do you mean?
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‘Her accent sounded foreign.’ The way the man pronounced it made the word sound like “furrin”.
‘Was she alone?’
‘As far as I know,’ the victim admitted sheepishly. ‘I didn’t pay much attention to owt else.’
‘When did this scarlet woman leave?’
‘A few minutes before he were robbed, I reckon. She made a call on her mobile; then finished her drink and headed towards the toilets,’ one of the other men replied. ‘Strange though, I never saw her come back.’
Nash turned his attention to the victim. ‘What about the man who attacked you? Did you get a look at his face?’
‘I did and I didn’t. I saw his reflection in the mirror.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘No, he was wearing one of those hoodie things across his face. Like the ones the SAS use.’
‘A balaclava?’
‘Aye, that’s it.’
‘How was he dressed?’
‘I could only see his head and the sleeve of what looked like one of them bomber jackets. It was black, like his gloves.’
‘What age was he?’
‘I don’t know. Not a kid, but not old. Twenty to thirty perhaps, judging by his voice; I’m not sure — he didn’t sound local.’
‘He didn’t?’
‘No, sort of foreign-like.’
‘Any idea how tall he was?’
‘Not right big; about the same height as me I reckon. The arm holding the knife wasn’t at an angle like it would have been if he’d been taller. Skinny, I guess, but like I said, all I saw were his reflection. That’s all I noticed. I was too busy worrying about having my throat cut.’
‘Did any of you see this person pass through the bar?’
They all shook their heads.
‘Right, wait here. We’d better take a look at the crime scene.’
The toilet facilities were located at one side of a long corridor leading from the bar, at the end of which was a door to the car park. ‘Clara, check the ladies, see if this redhead’s in there.’
‘You think she’s involved?’
‘No idea, but I’m not ruling anything out. Not with two “furrin” accents,’ he said, mimicking the farmers.
Within moments, Clara returned. ‘Empty. Must have gone out the back way.’
‘Probably the same with the mugger,’ Nash supposed.
Their inspection of the gents revealed nothing to give them a clue as to the attacker’s identity, and Nash was in the process of telling Clara to order a CSI team to dust the room for prints, when the door opened.
The customer’s face registered horror when he saw Clara. He glanced at the logo on the door and realized he hadn’t walked into the wrong toilet by mistake. Nash showed the man his warrant card and told him, ‘Use the ladies’ toilet. This one is a crime scene and won’t be available until our people have finished here.’
Clara was already on the phone to Netherdale when Nash’s mobile rang. He listened for a few moments and then said, ‘Thanks, Lisa, we’ll deal with it. We’re about finished here, so we’ll go straight round. I’m sending a group of farmers across to the station. I want you and Jack to take their statements about the mugging. Be sure to get all you can from them about a redhead seen in the bar around the time of the robbery. We think she could be in league with the thief. Don’t let them dwell on her charms too long though, or you’ll have to wipe drool off the interview room table.’
‘We need to be on the move,’ he told Clara. ‘There’s been another mugging. Same MO, by the sound of it. Better tell the landlord to put an out-of-order sign here until CSI have finished. Also, apologize to him for taking some of his best customers away and send our bucolic friends across to the station. Lisa’s waiting to take their statements. Once you’ve done that, follow me to the next crime scene.’
‘I’ll come now.’
‘But you’ve to wait for CSI.’
Clara was trying hard not to grin. ‘No, I don’t. They’re not coming.’ She saw Nash’s puzzled expression. ‘Do you want the exact words — or the polite version?’
‘I want to know why they’re refusing.’
‘OK, and I quote, “tell your boss if he thinks we’ve got time to print a bloody public convenience on a busy market day, then spend hours analysing the dozens of prints we find, he’s got another thing coming”.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I said I’d tell you.’ She grinned. ‘But he does have a point. I expect it’s well used. And it isn’t as though anyone was seriously injured. Besides, we both forgot something.’
‘We did?’
Clara was now tight-lipped and trying not to laugh. ‘Erm, yes. The assailant was wearing gloves.’
Nash shook his head and sighed. ‘Tell the landlord it’s business as usual. Leave him a card in case anything occurs to anyone, then follow me.’
‘Where will you be?’
‘In the car park at the back of the Fleece Hotel — talking to a very unhappy market trader.’
* * *
Lee was on his way home from the swimming baths. He should have been at school but had skived off; hoping his girlfriend Milly would do the same. She’d lost her nerve, so rather than waste the afternoon, Lee had been to the baths. He set off towards the market place intending to arrive home at the same time as the school bus reached Newton-on-Helm. As he turned the first corner, he saw the robbery of the market trader unfolding in front of him.
Lee’s first reaction was to run, but then he had a better idea. Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed his mobile and began recording the scene, even managing to capture the thief in the act of removing the balaclava. As the mugger turned to walk towards him, Lee ducked swiftly round the corner, retreated a dozen or so paces, then resumed his original route. So preoccupied was the villain that he didn’t appear to have noticed Lee, even when he used his mobile again to take another photo of him, this time much closer to hand.
Lee was about to run for his bus, excited and nervous at the same time, but then had second thoughts. This was really something. Wait till his mates at school saw this. He could post it online, get thousands of hits. This was really going to up his street cred. Having pondered what he’d seen for a few seconds, Lee wondered if he could get more. What if he followed the robber and found out where he lived? Unmasking the villain would raise Lee to the status of super-hero, at least in Milly’s eyes.
He realized he was shivering, but he wasn’t cold. His breathing was erratic, but surely that was because he’d been running, wasn’t it? By the time he reached the bus stop, he’d changed his mind, and began to sprint back towards the scene of the offence. He reached the lane running behind the market place just in time to see the robber disappear into a back yard. Lee knew this was the rear entrance to the Market Cafe. Did the villain work there, or could he be planning another heist? Lee was calmer now, but riddled with doubt. He had to check out what the man was doing, but without exposing himself to danger. Cautiously, Lee reached up and pointed his phone over the top of the wall; the camera set to video mode.
With the zoom on, he soon had images that showed the next robbery taking place. It was then that he saw the knife for the first time, and his earlier bravado vanished. Self-preservation took over. At that point, the gate leading to the back yard opened and the robber emerged. Lee had just been able to conceal his mobile before the man glanced his way. Lee turned and hurried in the opposite direction, passing a young woman with incongruously coloured red hair as he hurried back to the bus stop.
Now he was in a quandary; what to do with the photos and videos he’d shot? If he put them online everyone would know where he’d been and they’d ask awkward questions about why he hadn’t been in school. His mother would find out he’d been in town. His teachers would know he wasn’t ill.
‘Bugger,’ he said, as he sat on the bus staring at the screen of his mobile. Then he smiled. ‘At least I can show Milly.’ It was then another, far more seri
ous thought occurred to him. What if the mugger had seen him? What if word got out and he came looking for him? And he had a knife!
Now he was scared.
Chapter Six
The pet supplies seller told a very similar story to that of the farmer. Although he hadn’t been able to see if his assailant was wearing a balaclava or not, there was little doubt in either of the detectives’ minds that the attack had been carried out by the same person. Or persons, as it soon transpired.
‘Did you notice anything before the attack?’ Clara asked him. ‘Anything that might be relevant?’
The trader’s smile was a little shamefaced. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t paying too much attention. I walk through the ginnel to the car park twice a week. I’ve been doing it for so many years it’s become like being on automatic pilot. Besides which, I was too busy looking at the girl.’
Nash and Clara exchanged glances.
‘Girl? What girl?’ Clara asked.
‘There was this redhead walking in front of me. Lovely figure, legs that went all the way . . . well, you know what I mean.’ He looked at Nash for support. ‘She was talking on her mobile and I hoped to catch up with her to see if the view from the front was as stunning as it was from the back. But she was in a hurry, so I never did get a look at her face,’ he ended sadly.
Clara continued to question the trader about the incident as Nash answered another call on his mobile. Out of her eye corner, she saw his face change, and when she heard his closing words, realized they had further problems. ‘OK, Jack, we’ll head there straightaway. Better let Lisa know we’re sending her another victim; she’ll need to take another statement. No, this one isn’t a farmer. It’s the market trader. Oh, and, Jack, ask Lisa to get a description of the woman. Tell her it sounds like the same one as the farmers mentioned from in the Cobblers Arms. That could be coincidence, but I—’